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Body of Owen Sound woman recovered

Peterborough OPP spokesman Iain McEwan, left, speaks with a member of the OPP Underwater Search and Recovery Unit as police recovered the body of a 27-year-old Owen Sound woman from Eels Lake Monday afternoon. Dana Sue Cranwell was drowned after the Jeep she was riding in broke through the water at about 12:15 a.m. Her brother, 29-year-old Patrick Cranwell, was the driver of the Jeep and was convicted of impaired driving causing death this month. The Crown is seeking a six-year sentence.
GALEN EAGLE/Examiner/QMI Agency

An OPP dive team recovered the body of an Owen Sound woman who drowned after the Jeep she was riding in plunged through the ice at Eels Lake, west of Bancroft.

Dana Sue Cranwell, 27, drowned in the early morning hours Monday after she was unable to escape from the submerged vehicle, police said.

Her brother, a 29-year-old Bancroft man, has been charged with impaired driving causing death, driving a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level exceeding the legal limit causing death and dangerous driving causing death.

He remains in custody and is scheduled to appear in court for a bail hearing in Peterborough Friday.

Cranwell worked at an advertising agency in Springmount called Avenue A. She had worked there for two years as a project manager, said Jason Nagel, executive director of the company.

Twelve people work at the agency, he said, and the group was to meet Wednesday to discuss the situation. Cranwell was the mother of three young kids, he said.

“It’s not good news,” he said.

Nagel said he heard of Cranwell’s death Monday. The company had closed for the holidays.

Dana Cranwell was one of two passengers in the late-model jeep who got into the vehicle after her brother was joyriding on the family cottage property at about 12:15 a.m., OPP spokesman Iain McEwan said.

The driver took the jeep out onto the ice and spun it around in circles before it broke through the ice and sank in more than 30 feet of water, police said.

Area residents said the lake has a swift current and the ice would not have been thick enough to support a vehicle. McEwan echoed those comments.

“It’s not very thick. He shouldn’t have gone on the ice at all,” McEwan said. “It would be hazardous, I believe, for a person to be walking on the ice, let alone a vehicle.”

The driver and the other passenger, an 18-year-old man, escaped the vehicle but Cranwell was unable to get out as it sank. The temperature at the time would have been about -6 C.

Police who arrived shortly after the Jeep broke through the ice were concerned about unsafe ice conditions and postponed the search until the arrival of the OPP Underwater Search and Recovery Unit.

Dry suit wearing OPP divers entered the water after cutting holes in the lakes about 150 feet from the shore at about 11 a.m., police said. Officers recovered the body at about 2 p.m.

The shoreline near the Cranwell property is on a private cottage road and news media were not being allowed passage.

Eel’s Lake is 90 kilometres north of Peterborough and west of Silent Lake Provincial Park.